By Moody Marty | Opening Doorz Editorial |November 26, 2025
Leave Smriti Mandhana Alone!
The sheer venom being spewed online against Smriti Mandhana is a disgrace—a modern-day digital pillory that she does not deserve. But then, haven’t we entered the evil age? The age where every moment must be ‘seen’, every private interaction ‘shown off’, and every soul laid bare for the rabid commentary of strangers. It’s a disease, I tell you.
These leaked chats, splashed across every unforgiving corner of the internet, are doing more than just embarrass her; they are blunting her spirit. They are forcing a brilliant, dedicated athlete to retreat into a protective shell, and this is wrong.
Smriti Mandhana will take time to heal. You cannot take a blow like this and shake it off by the next morning. Mark my words, rebound she will. She has the heart of a champion.
The real tragedy is what this does to Indian women’s cricket. We were on a high, enjoying the ascent, and now this unnecessary scandal poisons the atmosphere.
The BCCI, frankly, needs to get a backbone and some common sense. While we cheer victory, the surrounding environment must be professional. They need to ensure, with absolute clarity, that boyfriends, girlfriends, or any personal attachments are nowhere near the players during official team celebrations or sensitive moments. Boundaries must be enforced to protect players’ focus and privacy.
Where was the need for Palash Muchhal to come onto the celebration arena after the recent World Cup win? As much as the BCCCI is to be blamed, so are the players. In this context, Smriti Mandhana.
Dear Smriti, Delete the apps, switch off the noise. This instant connection machine is nothing but a distraction now. Go dark. Focus on the simple, clean sound of a bat hitting a ball. Come back stronger.
Silence the critics with your runs, not your replies.
The Uniform and the False Idol: An Officer’s Mistake
The decision by Lieutenant Samuel Kamalesan to refuse participation in his regiment’s parades, specifically by refusing to even set foot inside the Gurudwara, is nothing short of a moral failure. The Supreme Court was right to uphold his dismissal. When you sign up, you sign up for the whole package: the uniform, the discipline, the commitment to the greater, secular ideal of the Republic. You don’t get to parse your sacred oath through the narrow, brittle lens of personal religious conviction.
This isn’t about faith; it’s about duty. It’s about the essential, unbreakable bond of the military unit. When a soldier draws a boundary (“I will serve alongside you, but I will not respect your customs”), they sever that bond. They forget the foundation of all true spirituality.
Let me be absolutely clear: Loyalty to God does not mean hostility towards those who follow another religion. This is the essence of Psalm 16. The Psalmist praises the Lord as his portion and his inheritance, finding his deepest joy and security in Him, not in rejecting the tents of others. True fidelity to the divine elevates us above petty sectarianism; it doesn’t chain us to it.
Lieutenant Samuel Kamalesan turned a magnificent opportunity to demonstrate the unity and spiritual security that real faith provides into a pitiful display of pious nonsense and self-separation. It sets a dreadful precedent. It poisons the hard-won neutrality of our armed forces.
He confused obedience to the Bible with insolence toward his brothers in arms. That kind of devotion is not virtuous; it’s simply disruptive. And for that, the uniform had to go. He needs to retreat, reflect, and realise that you cannot serve your country by refusing to stand beside it.
Jesus would have seen Kamalesan’s refusal to enter the Gurudwara as a form of “straining out the gnat”. “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:24).
For the uninitiated, the Gnat in this case is the small, ceremonial offence of entering a building of another faith. The “Camel” is the massive moral offense of breaking one’s covenant (his oath to the Army), causing division within a military unit, and displaying uncharitable judgment toward comrades of different faiths.
Jesus would have asked the Lieutenant: “Is the sanctity of your uniform and the loyalty to your brother-in-arms less important than which doorway you choose to cross? Where are the weightier matters of the Law in this decision? Where is Justice and mercy?”
True loyalty to God is found in acts of love and unity, not in rigid, isolating refusal.
The Unfollow Verdict: Palash Muchhal Hits the Mute Button
Coming back to Smriti Mandhana and the social media circus, the real, low-key drama is unfolding elsewhere. Where is the music man, Palash Muchhal? The composer, known for his vocal clarity, has seemingly hit the mute button on life, going quieter than an umpire during a tense DRS review. For a star who once thrived on public connection, his sudden incognito status is an announcement in itself.
And the plot thickens on the digital pitch. The social media ground has turned decidedly sticky for him. One by one, Smriti’s cricketer friends and teammates are performing the professional equivalent of a run-out. These are the very individuals who once offered friendly digital handshakes and posed for cheerful group selfies. They now execute a swift, decisive press of the ‘Unfollow’ button.
This quiet, coordinated exit from his follower list is a masterclass in subtle, high-profile detachment. While Smriti Mandhana continues to shine, her circle is drawing a clear boundary rope around the former beau.
For now, the Mandhana-Muchhal narrative is suspended, a rare Bollywood-meets-Cricket saga that is concluding not with a dramatic public statement, but with the deafening sound of silence and the quiet click of a mouse. It’s a perfect illustration that sometimes, the most defining moments in celebrity lives are written in the smallest digital gestures.
[Moody Marty: Sometimes funny, sometimes informative, always downright forthright!]
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